When I die young, remember me
by Luna's little noodle
Summary: Harry Potter is dead. Nobody thinks much of it – after all, he's a Slytherin. The world keeps turning. People keep living. They don't need a Slytherin Potter. Until they do. But he's dead. And they have no one to blame but themselves. (The end of the Pushed too far 'verse)
1. The smallest coffins are the saddest

Of course there was a funeral.

Held on the grounds of Hogwarts, it was a magnificent affair. Hundreds of witches and wizards had arrived, from shopkeepers to dragon tamers to Wizengamot members. Countries from around the world had sent delegations of representatives, if not their own leaders, to attend. Journalists hovered round the edges, taking note of the every action and reaction of each guest.

The students had been given the day off lessons to attend. The front rows had been reserved for visiting dignitaries, but after them were the students, lined in neat rows, divided by year, then house, then name. The seats for the teachers were closest to the aisle, their black mourning robes a sharp contrast to the white seats.

It was a long funeral.

Hagrid was the one to place the small body in the small coffin, tears streaming down his cheeks. Lilies were tucked around his body, filling the empty space, spilling over the sides of the coffin. His wand was clasped in cold hands, its pale holly wood dulled.

Then there were speeches.

First the officiator spoke, the usual rites and prayers. Then the Minister, a black bowler hat held in trembling fingers as he expounded the bravery of a boy who would never know of the how deeply he was held in their hearts.

The teachers took their places next. Severus Snape, Head of his House, read the eulogy; how he had been a quiet boy, how he had been the best of both his parents, how his death was a true tragedy. Students both past and present were shocked at the depth of his emotion.

Other teachers had followed: Transfiguration, Charms, Herbology, every teacher spoke of their love for the Boy-Who-Lived, until the Headmaster took the stage. Albus Dumbledore spoke of how there would never be another like Harry, how his loss would be felt for ages to come, how his was a life taken far too soon.

The coffin was closed, and a phoenix landed on the lid. He sung a low, mournful note, that reverberated in the hearts of every attendee, before flying back to the castle.

Most of the crowd was sent to the Great Hall for the wake. A select few stayed with the coffin as it was loaded on a Thestral-pulled hearse, before apparating to a small cemetery.

An hour later the coffin was lowered into the plot next to a marble headstone: _James and Lily Potter_. More lilies then, placed on the coffin one by one, followed by a handful of dirt. The mourners left after, in their own time, until only one remained.

Old scars covered his face, and his clothes were patched and shabby. He knelt between the graves, uncaring of the rain that had begun. "James," he said, voice tight and shaking, "Lily. _Harry_." He started to sob, words choked out between the tears. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so _sorry_."

* * *

 **I have been asked _numerous_ times to continue _Pushed too far_ , so here you go. This is Harry's funeral, and as we can see, the Wizarding World is full of lying hypocrites –but that's nothing new. While it's short, I do have plans to write a bit more on what happens to the other characters, sort of a summary of what happened to them. Nothing too long, hopefully, as there is literally less than a month until my first GCSE (Spanish. _joy_.) and I should be revising, but this is a Bank Holiday weekend so I want to write a bit more. If it isn't out by the end of Monday, the earliest it should be out is end of June. If it comes out sooner, yell at me: I should be revising.**

 **I'll mark this complete if the next part is longer than 1.5k and is going to be published as another story – otherwise it will be another chapter.**

 ** _[original notes, transferred 7/8/16]_**


	2. When I die young, remember me

Before the wake had even ended, Severus Snape had packed his things and left Hogwarts forever. His only reason to stay had died despite the Headmaster's best efforts, and Lily's hold over him only extended so far. By the time Dumbledore returned, it was too late to even guess where he might have gone; besides, the point became obsolete soon enough, anyway.

Quirrell – or rather, Voldemort – had taken advantage of the distraction of the school, and bested the 'traps' far too easily: Hagrid's mutt not yet arrived, nor Dumbledore's protection, whatever it might have been. Stone in hand, he had not even returned to his quarters before leaving the school; although, he paused, staring at the full Great Hall in disgust, before deliberately turning, leaving with no further interruption.

Remus Lupin spent the rest of the day in the graveyard, and most of the night as well, until a kindly Muggle woman took him by the shoulders and led him to her home, where her husband had made tea. It took another hour for him to stop sobbing, leaving his eyes ringed red and his throat sore. Upon leaving the house, Remus found himself near the Potter's cottage – memorial, now – and with a furious twist apparated to the shack he called home to write a letter.

Sirius Black only learned of the outside world through what the guards told him, and as they thought it better he suffer thinking the defeat of his 'Master' was alive and well, he first heard of his godson's death through a painfully familiar scrawl, letters spiking in anger.

 _Harry's dead. You've won._

A howl echoed across the island of Azkaban, one of pain and loss and sorrow. Bellatrix Lestrange cackled, what human guards there were shivered, and, beneath their black hoods, the Dementors didn't smile, but between them there was satisfaction the Innocent had finally Broken.

For the week following the funeral, Hogwarts was sombre, the gravity of their actions hitting both students and teachers. Even the ghosts seemed affected (except for Peeves, but was he ever?). But it was what the population of the caste did after that week that defined them.

Some students took it as an example, of what they were capable of. Others took it as a warning, of what they could cause. Still more saw it as display, of what they could do.

Some students changed, their behaviour becoming more kind, regardless of house, their temperaments mellowing, arguments failing to draw the same rise from a fortnight ago. These were the students whose eyes held sorrow when they saw the monument in the Entrance Hall.

Other students changed as well, but unlike their counterparts it was for the worst. They had been shown what they could do, and they wanted _more_. Wanted to feel that sense of control again, of having another at their mercy, of much so the only escape was death. They _revelled_ in it.

Then there were the rest of the students, as well as all the teachers, who didn't. Change, that was; they saw what had happened, saw the consequences of prejudice and a refusal to believe beyond preconceived notions, and did _nothing_.

On the whole, however, the Wizarding World did not overly change much, in the first months after his death. Businesses ran as usual, births and deaths still occurred, everything was normal. In Hogwarts, too, the only real change was how there was a week where there had been no Potions and Defence lessons, until Dumbledore could hire replacements. All seemed well.

Then Hogsmeade _burned_.

Voldemort had not been idle once leaving Hogwarts. A new body was easy to come by, with the Stone. With escapees from an Azkaban breakout the Ministry had covered up, Voldemort himself helped raze the village to the ground. By the time the Aurors had arrived, the only building relatively whole was the Shrieking Shack. The only survivors were seven wizards and eight witches who'd managed to Floo away before The Three Broomsticks collapsed; the only paltry comfort was how there had been no students in the village.

Dumbledore put the school on lockdown, a process not needed since the First War (because this fight was always a war). When and only when all students were accounted for, safe in their dorms, did he send a message he hadn't sent for ten years: "The Order of the Phoenix must assemble."

Only half the members from an old photograph Mad-Eye Moody would never show a fifteen year old boy came. The rest… injury, age, but mainly death kept them away. But there were also members who'd never seen war before, and while that would change there was always a hope that they brought.

The attacks continued.

Next was Diagon Alley, later the Ministry. Cornelius Fudge died begging at Voldemort's feet. Thousands of wands screamed as Ollivander's shop burned. The Heads of Department were tortured in the Atrium, until death was a mercy. Gringotts barricaded their doors at the slaughter, and even after the last Death Eater had left refused to open them. Barty Crouch Jr murdered his father and gleefully re-joined his Lord.

Each time, the Aurors and Order arrived too late to do much more than futilely combat what Death Eaters were left (Voldemort would fade away at the first appearance of an Order member). Then the Ministry was taken, and the Aurors didn't arrive at all.

Once in charge of the Ministry, Voldemort toppled Azkaban. He retrieved the few of his that were still behind its bars, the sent it to the ground. At the next fight, Remus Lupin shouted for Black to appear, the coward. Lucius Malfoy sent his dead body floating to the man, arms bearing a distinct lack of the skull-and-snake symbol. Remus dropped, and was still weeping when Peter Pettigrew ripped the flesh from his bones.

Igor Karkaroff's head appeared on a pike outside the gates of Durmstrang, unseeing eyes wide with terror. The next day Severus Snape's head decorated the highest spike of the gates, eyes glassy, tongue lolling, blood dripping. Voldemort stayed long enough to look into Dumbledore's eyes before disapparating.

Only then did his tongue loosen, its secrets too big to be kept any longer. Dumbledore told a much smaller Order of the Phoenix the story of Tom Riddle, and the steps he took along the path to immortality. Plans were made to hunt down the Horcruxes, covertly kept as if there was anything Voldemort _couldn't_ know, it was this.

There was uneasy peace in Britain afterwards, as Voldemort turned his attention elsewhere. The only place of resistance left was Hogwarts; what students left were sent home, muggleborns Obliviated with a prayer and dropped on their doorsteps. Reports trickled in, of the devastation Voldemort wrecked across oceans and continents as more and more survivors were wiped out. It was the choice, between a binding mark and an obliterating death, that killed most of them. The entire magical Indian subcontinent was annihilated as they refused to bow again to a British oppressor, fighting to the last breath.

In Britain there were three factions: the Death Eaters, the Order of Phoenix, and a split-group led by Mad-Eye Moody that attacked the Death Eaters first. No mercy. When Dumbledore pleaded the Death Eaters could be reformed, that they shouldn't stoop to their levels, Moody laughed and spit on the ground at his feet. There was no redemption for Death Eaters. No mercy; no survivors.

The Horcruxes were still being hunted. Minerva McGonagall and Filius Flitwick travelled with Dumbledore as they gruelling searched for each one. Bill Weasley had been in Gringotts when it sealed, and Flitwick used him to inform the goblins of the one in Bellatrix Lestrange's vault. They had destroyed it with great relish.

When they learned of the one in Malfoy Manor, McGonagall, who had recently met with Moody, burnt it to the ground with everyone inside. Dumbledore was appalled. McGonagall smoothed loose hairs back into her bun. "This is war, Albus. If you aren't fighting, you're losing."

In retaliation, the Death Eaters burnt down the Burrow. More than half the Weasleys were trapped inside.

Dumbledore put on the ring (he always would put on the ring). With no Severus Snape to help he died an ignoble death in the Gaunt Shack. McGonagall and Flitwick grieved, but grief was no use in a war. They burnt the Shack to the ground; the ring on Dumbledore's hand gave an unworldly shriek as Fiendfyre consumed it.

Voldemort returned to Britain. McGonagall and Flitwick returned to Hogwarts, their last lead was extinguished, until the Grey Lady heard them discussing 'Tom' and lead them to the Room of Requirement. Then that one was destroyed too, and while distance had dulled the passing of the others, Voldemort felt in full force the destruction of the diadem. This was a Voldemort without Nagini, his soul fractionally larger, mind fractionally saner, magic fractionally stabler; he recalled his Horcruxes. When only the locket appeared, cooling corpses were left behind as Voldemort rallied every Death Eater breathing and then some.

They marched on Hogwarts.

Hogwarts prepared. The war-wards, already battered, were strengthened; combat spells were taught, practised, mastered enough that by the time the wards fell they sprang from the wand without more than a breath. The Great Hall became the War Room, battle plans presented and pushed aside just as quickly, except for the few applicable; survivors were recalled, because this fight would the Last Stand. The children were sent to the dungeons, not for punishment but for protection.

But there were always those who slipped back up to fight.

Neville Longbottom and Ginny Weasley were first up the steps, fourteen and thirteen and far more jaded than they might have been in another life. Far more ready to fight back against the man ( _monster_ ) who had taken and taken and _taken_ from them. Ready to avenge the deaths of loved ones and ones they'd never met; Neville Longbottom and Ginny Weasley were ready to fight.

Others followed, but they were the youngest. They were the ones with the least to lose and the most to gain, and a spark of hope that even Voldemort hadn't been able to snuff out.

So the children (because this was a children's school, a children's war, a children's death, ever since–) fought alongside adults, who were desperate for _them_ , at least, to live, and half the fighters (soldiers, _children_ ), were deposited safely back in Hogwart's heart. But there were two few who weren't, and Neville and Ginny were still fighting in the halls when Voldemort entered the school, a locket of green and silver prominent on his chest.

His hands were pale, long fingers clutching his wand in almost a caress, sending spells with nary a whisper, a sweep, a soft brush of light, and bodies were left in his wake. It was collateral. Unfortunate. Unnecessary. Yet the trail of bodies continued, no one left alive.

It wasn't a school any longer, but a battlefield. Corridors pockmarked by spells, debris gouged out of walls and columns and floors, bloodstains and bodies decorating it all; any alumnus would be hard pressed to find any similarity to the setting of their youthful days. McGonagall and Flitwick had rallied their few fighters left in the Entrance Hall, a small circle back to back against the hordes surrounding it. The points hourglasses were shattered, precious stones that no one had cared for in a long time spilling over the floor as fights continued around them; the large doors out onto the grounds were gone, ripped off their hinges and scattered in pieces across once-pristine lawns. Only one statue – _his_ statue – remained curiously untouched.

Neville Longbottom and Ginny Weasley arrived in the Entrance Hall in time to see Pomona Sprout's head leave her shoulders. But it wasn't her that Voldemort was interested in.

"Ahh." His voice was a smooth, serpentine hiss, slipping through the hard sounds, lingering on the soft. "Using children to fight your battles now, are we?" It was a question that gained no answer, for there was no answer left to give that could condone it. "Who–"

A squat, wheezing man barrelled into the room, upsetting the calm balance that had fallen. "Not anymore, they're not," he answered, giggling delightedly. Horror fell amongst the fighters left: his path came from the dungeons, gore _dripped_ from his robes. Giggles turned to screams as he was cursed for his insolence, but those fighters left took no notice, trapped as they were in what terrors their minds had conjured.

Voldemort picked off the distracted adults one by one, until only McGonagall, bruised and beaten down, remained. Then Ginny Weasley raised her wand, and thought of what Voldemort had done to her, how he had ruined her family, torn it apart until it was only her and Bill and Charlie left, then just now brought their number down to one. The Death Eaters laughed at this impetuous girl, who thought she could raise a wand to, never mind actually harm the _Dark Lord_.

But then she spoke. " _Avada Kedavra_."

A jet of sickly green light escaped from her wand, all her anger, all her hatred towards the _thing_ that had taken everything from her; Voldemort turned to this thirteen-year-old slip of a girl, a curse on his lips, wand raised almost lazily, until the green jet hit him in the chest. His eyes widened a fraction in surprise as it impacted, and he fell, gracelessly, to the floor.

Then many things happened at once.

A pillar of dark smoke rose from Voldemort's body, a snarling face forming in its midst as it flew towards the girl that dared remove him from his mortal shell; Bellatrix Lestrange shrieked, sending fifteen different dangerous curses towards this child, and her friend, for _how dare she_ ; McGonagall painfully reached for her wand, blood making her grip slip off the handle, until she could aim it at Voldemort's husk of a body, at the locket glinting among the folds of his crumpled robes. She cast Fiendfyre as Voldemort's shade impacted with Ginny, at the same time as Bellatrix's spells hit her and Neville, as the rest of the Death Eaters realised what had happened.

Ginny Weasley and Neville Longbottom collapsed, dead before they hit the floor. A blood-curdling shriek left the burning locket as Voldemort turned back to McGonagall; she smiled at his shade, before lowering to the floor, her last spent, eyes glassy and unseeing. The cords that connected him to the mortal world began to snap, and Voldemort drew power to himself, trying to tether his spirit, real fear echoing to the tattered remains of his soul. He drew on his own power first to strengthen the bonds, then when that extinguished pulled on the power of his bound followers.

The Death Eaters in the Entrance Hall dropped to their knees as they felt their magic draining, faces screwed in pain as Voldemort summoned every last drop; the sounds of their bodies hitting the floor was lost as he screamed in incoherent rage, and reached farther. Marked subjects across the country dropped, then the continent, then the magical world as Voldemort pulled every bit of power available into tethering his spirit on this plane of existence.

McGonagall's Fiendfyre spread with no one there to contain it, until all that was left in the Entrance Hall was flames, Voldemort's spirit, and the statue, still, against all odds. He pulled every ounce of power to himself, in a desperate attempt to fight the inevitable, but when all his reserves had drained dry, and his shattered soul was finally pulled along, the last image Voldemort saw was a phoenix of Fiendfyre, illuminating that statue so its mouth seemed to smile, before he was gone, never to inhabit this plane again.

The phoenix dove at the statue, its light still creating that bittersweet smile, and the rock broke apart from the heat.

* * *

 **So... thoughts?**

 **If you're curious about the ending, it's yours to interpret. I will say that (and it was alluded to in the story) every magical person across the globe has a Dark Mark. If they don't they're already dead. The rest is up for discussion, and I'd love to hear your take on it.**

 **This is the end of the ' _Pushed too far_ ' 'verse, chronologically. There will be no more stories set after the end of this one. As of right now, the only plans I have for any other works in this 'verse are some half-written ideas about the reunion between Harry and his parents, but I'm leaving them until after exams (so July at the earliest).**

 **[on 'When in doubt': I have hit a block. Will hopefully pass it soon. Very sorry about not updating in March. Again, won't update until July. Sorry.]**


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